Sunday, December 13, 2015

Swanky title about Greece

I decided to
write about my trip to Greece first because frankly it was so much more
fun/interesting/I think you’ll enjoy it more. It’s also going to take forever
to write so I might as well get started. Also also, on my trip to Granada I
thought of an idea for the book I want to write so I thought I might try that
form out today. It’s pretty similar to what I’ve been doing but with a few
changes, I’m thinking along the lines of a collection of short stories starting
with a recommendation on what they should be enjoyed with. Let me know what
y’all think! I’m always open to comments / criticism / suggestions.

Note: “tomar un café” means to have a coffee,
usually at a café. “Tomar algo” means
to have something, in the same way. Also, please accept this as a draft, I’m
all out of creative titles.

Tomar algo: Cappuccino with
brown sugar and a bite sized chocolate chip cookie or two

My birthday trip
got off to a somewhat rough start, about an hour before we got to Madrid, the
lady I was sitting next to on the autobus
got sick and threw up everywhere, I’m pretty sure she even passed out for a second.
Luckily, my counselor/college student skills jumped into action to prevent her
from 1. throwing up on me and 2. choking. It was a great way to wake up and get
my blood pumping for the day. The bus got to the airport hours before my flight
so I spent quite a while getting familiar with the floor in Terminal 2 before I
could check in. A budget traveler’s life is rarely glamorous, so my breakfast
matched my look.

I spent my early
morning hours contemplating the complexity of Don Quijote, a topic brought upon
either by my deliriousness (I probably slept for a maximum of 15 minutes on the
bus) or my impending final on the book and its author. For those who haven’t
read at least part of the book (I certainly haven’t read it in its entirety
yet), Quijote is surprisingly relevant today, especially to twentysomethings
who aren’t content with the ideals of our demanding society and sitting still.

After several
hours of both reveling in one of the greatest novels ever written and cursing
the sloppiness and inconsistency of Cervantes it was finally time to board the
plane. The flight was mostly uneventful due to the wonderful service (and
food…a whole actual meal…for free!) of Aegean Airlines. But life wouldn’t be
interesting if it was uneventful. While I have thus far been lucky with seating
on planes, I got to spend three and a half hours listening to a Chinese/Spanish
family yelling in both Chinese and Spanish AND I got to listen to three and a
half hours of an Asian soap opera because apparently headphones are now
optional. Maybe I should have played my country playlist out loud as well?

We flew into Greece
as the sun was setting and it was magical. I didn’t realize how mountainous the country was and flying into the sunset over snowcapped mountains was amazing.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more beautiful, Athens appeared from
under the wing of the plane. The entire city was lit up against a purple sky
and the deep blue sea. Simply breathtaking. I didn’t (couldn’t) even attempt to
capture it in a picture. I think that’s when I fell in love with Greece.

I was staying
with a friend, Matt, and he met me at the airport which was ideal because, as
you may know, they speak Greek in Greece and I’m not sure that my exhausted,
romance language filled mind could have navigated the (Greek) public
transportation system. On our journey into Athens proper I got my first glimpse
of Greek life: worry beads, Greek singing and dancing, riot police, and
Christmas lights. After putting my stuff away in the apartment I was staying in,
we set out for a mini night time tour of Athens. Since Matt is a classics
major, I got the Spark Notes version of the several thousand year history of
Greece as we walked by monuments like the Temple of Zeus. While it was all
interesting, my favorite part was climbing up the huge hill that the Acropolis
is on (not easy in a skirt) and having a panoramic view of Athens at night. It
was amazing seeing the dark, imposing mountains turn into the sprawling,
brightly lit city, turn into the equally dark sea. I’ve often been asked
“mountains or sea?” and if I could give you an answer before, I certainly can’t
now. Both are far too inspiring.

We met up with a
friend of Matt’s for dinner at a taberna called
“The Black Cat”. It was traditionally Greek, or so I was told, though it had a
somewhat American feel to it but that might have just been the red and white
checked table cloths and Christmas decorations. In enrich my first experience
of Greek food we ordered a variety of appetizers to go with our meals.

A traditional Greek salad
with possibly the best feta cheese I have ever had, saganaki (a fried cheese square),
tzatziki (a spread), fresh bread, and a jar of Rosé complemented by my main
dish-a piece of flaky, melt-in-your-mouth spinach pie

I think you
could call dinner a success. As you might imagine, it was so nice to spend time
with someone I knew. While one of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting new
people, it can be exhausting. It’s nice to just slip into conversation without
having to explain things or people or ways of thinking. After dinner we went
out to a terrace bar for drinks. We ordered Rakomelo which is a traditional
drink made from raki, a grape based bourbon, mixed with honey and spices,
served warm. I was absolutely in heaven because it can only be explained in
American terms as warm Jack Honey which is my favorite drink in the whole
world. I’m a bit disappointed in myself because I never thought of trying it
warm before. While we were out, sipping on our drinks, overlooking Poco Poco (a
24 hour eatery), midnight struck and it was my birthday. It was understandably
uneventful, but then again was it? How many people get to celebrate their
birthday in Athens?

After breakfast
we hit the ground running “seeing the sights”/“doing the sites” (I’m still not
positive which one it was). We saw pretty much every historical site in the
center of the city including the theater of Dionysus, the Parthenon, various
temples and monuments, several parks and the Agora. My history lesson continued
and I was impressed with how much I remembered from my Dance History class
(note: Mark isn’t entirely crazy!). Photographing the monuments was equally fun
and frustrating, as there’s always something that doesn’t belong. Maybe I’ll
write a book on that, History or
His-story? Failed attempts a photographing monuments and landmarks due to man’s
need to be in the way. We did a lot of walking. I always forget how much of
traveling is just being on your feet. After strolling through an outdoor
market, Matt and I got lunch. The atmosphere was cool, the host was hilarious
and the food was good, what else could you ask for?

Pasta with olive oil, tomato
sauce, eggplant and a variety of other veggies that tasted like magic and
summer and some of the most dense, flavorful bread that I’ve ever had

We stopped at Di
Vinci’s for gelato after and I went out of my mint chocolate/stracciatella comfort zone for caramel and chocolate
strawberry, it was divine. After a bit of shopping (Greece is so cheap!) we
went out to the sketchy/hipster part of town where we saw the remains of a
protest and a really beat up university building. I think that it’s really
important to see the “other side” of town when you are traveling. I had also
wanted to see the refugees, but it was getting dark and Matt suggested that we
not, I was a bit disappointed but completely agreed. As magical as almost all of my travel
experiences are, you can’t look at the world through rose-colored lenses, you
have to take in everything. You have to be swept away by the beauty of the
land, sea, and sky, you have to be amazed by ancient buildings and temples, and
you have to be disturbed by human crisis. You should take inspiration, hope, and
motivation, respectively, from your travels.

My afternoon
concluded with a glorious pre-dinner nap. We were meeting up with a few of
Matt’s other friends for dinner. Occasionally I have moments when I realize
just how European I’m becoming, and my rejoicing at the message I got saying
that we were not going to meet for dinner until nine was one of them. I loved
meeting Matt’s friends, one, Rocío, was studying with him in Greece and the
other was her friend, Jackie, who is spending the year in Copenhagen, which is
exciting because now I have someone else to visit this spring! She also goes to
Smith College, small world isn’t it? We had a great conversation about K-Pop
and weird Korean movies. Dinner was good, though there was a bit of a mix up,
as they brought my dinner out before the appetizer so we all ate that before
realizing that it was my meal, but it was good nonetheless.

A salad with feta, balsamic
vinaigrette, greens, and sundried tomatoes on crispy thin pita, grilled veggies
topped with fried cheese, and a cool, refreshing white wine to wash it down

After we ate, we
took a night paseo around the center
of Athens and saw what can only be described as “Greek”; Christmas decorations
lighting the riot police, the absolutely ridiculous presidential guards
marching against a backdrop of orange trees and twinkling lights, stray but
well fed and vaccinated cats and dogs being loved on by citizens, old men with
their worry beads and crowds of young, H&M clad students bounding around
the city center. We ended up at this hole in the wall bar that Matt had been to
with a professor and it was great. I’m not one for clubs or crazy nights out so
this was perfect. It was an old Turkish villa that had been transformed into a bar/art
gallery. I’m not exactly sure what I got to drink because they kind of mixed up
our order, but it was lemon-lime tasting and very good. The atmosphere was both
hipster and upscale academic but then again, is there really a difference? With
new friends and a drink in my hand, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to
end my birthday.

Greece part three

It was a good
thing we didn’t stay out too late the night before because Sunday was just as
long as Saturday. Our game plan for the day was Aegina, an island about an hour
ferry ride away from Athens Port. We met Rocío and Jackie at a corner café.

Another cappuccino and Praise
God Halleluiah a BAGEL AND PEANUT BUTTER, also a free cookie which appears to
be customary in Greece

The lady working
at the café was the sweetest and she only charged be half price for the peanut
butter because she “didn’t have much”…there was plenty on my bagel. We got down
to the dock and had to wait for about an hour for the next ferry, which was
fine because sometimes you just have to sit and think about the world. It’s so
easy to forget the magnitude of where you are what you are doing. Spending my
birthday weekend in Greece? What? And just when you feel on top of the world
you are hit with how small you are. How many people in the thousands of years
of Greek history have sat here, looking out over the sea? Surely countless
soldiers and immigrants, emigrants and historians, prisoners and lovers, have
looked wistfully to the sea and the mountains and back again and here I am,
just one girl in 2015 waiting for a ferry. ¿Impresionante,
no?

Back to the
boat. The ferry ride was a lot of fun. I had a nice conversation with a man out
on the upper level. He showed me some of the pictures he’s taken of birds on
the ferry, he’s a regular. The first thing we did when we got off the boat was
go to the pistachio vendors because that’s all Matt had been talking about all
weekend. I’ve never had pistachios; they’re one of the few foods that I still
haven’t tried because of some arbitrary prejudice. I think it’s because I see
pistachio ice cream as a mint chocolate chip imposter. Luckily I was able to
put this aside, and after a ridiculous amount of free samples of pistachios,
candied pistachios, pistachio butter, and pistachio ice cream I can say that I
really like them.

We spent the
morning strolling around the island. We went into a Greek Orthodox Church which
was cool, but jarring as usual because where are all the Marys? I’ve never been
in an orthodox church though so it was really interesting to see all the
Byzantine inspired art. Aside from the port, it’s a relatively residential
place with lots of old, beaten up, beautiful little houses. We walked down
little streets, past pistachio fields and olive groves. I only wish that they
spoke Spanish and not Greek so I would have a reason to spend my summer working
there.

We did not dress
correctly for the weather so by midday we were sweating, though in our defense
it was only forty degrees at night. From the minute we got back to the edge of
the island I couldn’t stop thinking about jumping in the crystal clear water.
I’ve never seen water so blue and beautiful. We played around a bit in an inlet
and joked about stealing a boat that was docked there. We kept walking. We came
to another inlet. I looked longingly at the sea and luckily I wasn’t the only
one. We started to walk away and Jackie said it, “I want to go swimming”. After
some discussion, justifying it by “we’re in Greece” and by the old man who was
swimming and didn’t look very cold at all, we were stripping off our winter
layers and making our way into the Aegean sea. It was cold, but not as cold as
Maine and it was salty, but not quite as
salty as two girls wearing the same dress at a party. Us girls hung out for a
bit, forced Matt to do the necessary photoshoot (“pics or it didn’t happen”),
and then got out. It was good. It was necessary. After drying off a bit we
headed back towards civilization for a 4pm lunch. It was a grab-and-go bocadilla, nothing special.

We ended our
island adventure at an archeological site. We whined about going, but it was
free and Matt wanted to so we did. It’s probably my favorite ancient ruins that
I’ve been to because we got to climb on it (Were we actually allowed to? I
don’t know). We watched what was easily the most magical sunset of my entire
life. I had a field day both photographing it and simply enjoying it. I am a
strong believer in the power of language, but as a writer of English and
Spanish I can confidently say that I don’t have the vocabulary to describe that
sunset to you. I’m not going to say anything other than that “I am an entirely
different person having seen the sun set on the other side of the world”.

Back in Athens
we went searching for a protest before dinner, but were unsuccessful…apparently
it wasn’t happening until later. In going against everything I’ve been told in
Spain I tried one of the oranges off the orange trees that line the streets,
both in Sevilla and Athens. I will say that the orange itself wasn’t bad, it was
a bit bitter which I was expecting because they are used to make bitter
marmalade, which I have tried. The juice, however, was so acidic that it made
my sun burned lips feel like they were bubbling and made me hyper aware of the
hundreds of teeny-tiny cuts that I apparently have all over my fingers. Good
experience though, cross that one off the bucket list.

We all went back
to our respective apartments and I met Megan, whose room I had been staying in,
and one of her friends. They had been in Berlin for the weekend and I loved
hearing about the Christmas markets they went to, the mulled wine sounded
delightful and I tried some of the candied nuts that they brought back. A big
group of people from Matt’s program got together and we all went out to Mystic
Pizza for dinner.

It was a lot of
fun hearing about everyone’s experience. It was interesting too because their
program is so different from JYS, they don’t live with host families and their
classes are taken at the program center as opposed to at an actual Greek
University. After finished, I think it was close to or after midnight, a few of
us bought some wine at a street kiosk and went back to Megan’s room. We sat up
and chatted about everything under the sun. Eventually, around 2 or 3am
responsible Holly came out and decided it was time to go to bed. I took a
shower and died a bit as I set my alarm for 5:40am.

Greece part four

Trying not to
think too much about the time, I rolled out of bed, followed Megan’s directions
to Poco Poco (conveniently stored in the notes section of my phone) and met
Matt at 6…well closer to 6:10.

Half of a double cappuccino
and maybe a third of a deliciously beautiful chocolate crepe that did not sit
well with my still wine-y stomach

I was
disappointed that I didn’t get to enjoy my breakfast but I had to be on the
metro by 6:30, so I should have gotten up earlier. After 45 minutes on the
train, airport security, a marathon of postcard writing, and a 10 minute bus
ride from the gate to the plane, I was comfortably strapped in to an Aegean jet
once again. My onboard breakfast was delightful as was the rest of my journey.
I elected to take the AVE home instead of the bus, mostly because I didn’t want
to wait twelve hours for the next bus to leave.

I came home to
the Christmas lights in Sevilla all turned on for the first time and the
traditional post-adventure tortilla and soup for dinner. [Note: not happy with this ending yet]

It’s still
amazing to me how much Sevilla has become home and how familiar Spanish is
after hearing a different language all weekend. With that, my final trip of the
semester is on the books and I’ll be enjoying la vida sevillana until after Christmas.